It's almost time again to start voting for the European parliament in Europe again, so political parties are boosting their marketing campaigns to make a difference in the more than 750 seats in the European parliament. The European parliament however isn't very popular at the moment in Europe anymore. There are simply too many people, from too many different countries, deciding over things people often didn't ask for. A few examples of these are the European constitution (which many people voted against, but still the European parliament accepted), loans to countries in Europe with financial problems (which many people didn't agree on), and of course the Honeyball resolution that not too long ago became accepted by the European parliament.

The Honeyball resolution is a resolution that advises (the European Union cannot make laws for this) countries that are part of Europe to follow the Nordic prostitution model. It comes from a British woman, named Mary Honeyball, and it basically states that all European countries should make clients of prostitutes illegal. This law has already been accepted in Sweden back in 1999, and has become very popular recently among other European countries, among which Holland, who are thinking about adopting this prostitution model.

The idea behind the model is as simple as it is naive, in order to fight human trafficking and forced prostitution, let's just take away the demand for prostitution, and the problem will resolve itself. The big problem of course, is the idea that making things illegal it would automatically stop. Prostitution is with a reason the oldest job in the world, because no matter what you do, there will always be a demand for it.
Think of it like this, did the prohibition of alcohol in the 1930's in the U.S. make people stop drinking alcohol simply because it was illegal? No, in fact, the only thing the prohibition did, was make everything related to alcohol go underground, where no police could find you, and therefore it became attractive for criminals (like Al Capone) to get their hands on it. In short, making things illegal only attracts criminals.

But since the Nordic prostitution model is based on the idea of saving women from forced prostitution and human trafficking, it begs the question how this would help? Because do people not visit prostitutes anymore in Sweden because it's illegal? No! In fact, daily people still visit prostitutes, they just do it out of sight of the police and other authorities, making it more dangerous for both the prostitute and the client.
In fact, the Nordic model even makes it easier for criminals to get involved, since it all happens out of sight of the police, and therefore prostitutes are in more danger of becoming victims of forced prostitution and human trafficking.
As you can see, the Nordic model does opposite of what it claims to do. It doesn't help any victims, since they're all out of sight of the police. And it doesn't help reducing human trafficking, in fact, it makes it easier to happen. In fact, you could even say that the Nordic model supports human trafficking!

Did those people who came up with the idea for the Nordic prostitution model really think a pimp would let a prostitute go, simply because they would make clients illegal? These pimps are criminals, the whole point of a criminal is the fact that they're not scared to do illegal things! Did they really expect those criminals to say to a girl they are forcing: 'Oh, shit, they criminalized your clients. Now we can't make money anymore. Maybe it's better if you go home. No hard feelings, okay?'
Of course not! These pimps have just been given a wild card by those dumb politicians to do whatever they want to do, because nobody can find them anymore, because it's illegal! Just like how the prohibition of alcohol attracted criminals, that's how the Nordic prostitution model attracts pimps. All they did, is make it worse for prostitutes to work. They don't get any protection from the police, since any client they'll receive will automatically be arrested because it's illegal.
And it certainly doesn't stop people from visiting prostitutes. Just because it's illegal, doesn't mean people will stop doing it, how many more times does history have to repeat itself before people will finally understand that! Those people who want to visit a prostitute are still there, now they're just doing it illegal, unsafe and in dangerous places on the street.

I know there are girls in Holland that are working in illegal prostitution and they have no problems with it. They work safe, and they like their job. However I also know girls in Italy, where prostitution is not legal, and there the girls are not that safe. Those girls have to keep moving around through the country, because if they stay too long in one place, pimps will try to take control over them, and force them to pay money for their protection, even if they don't want that. Those pimps are not afraid to use violence, and it's a good example of how working in illegal prostitution is not as safe as working in a country where prostitution is legal, and the prostitutes have rights and have protection from the police and other authorities.

The Nordic model makes it more difficult for victims of forced prostitution and human trafficking to get help, since it happens out of sight and out of reach of the police. It makes the work for free working prostitutes more dangerous, and even can turn them into victims of human trafficking, because of the absence of police, and it also makes it more dangerous for the clients, who now have to deal with pimps in stead of police.
Congratulations Sweden, you've just created a whole new industry for criminals to get their hands on, making women victims of the very thing you where trying to save them from!

You might begin to wonder whoever came up with the idea of the Nordic prostitution model? Where it pimps, who wanted to get their hands on the other part of prostitution they couldn't get their hands on? Where it political men that enjoy the desperation of women, like some sort of sadistic game, when they are having sex? No, they where feminist groups of women who strongly advocated the Nordic prostitution model, because in their eyes prostitution is by default degrading to women. Feminism on itself has become a growing cancer for prostitutes ever since they've been trying to 'save girls from prostitution', though they never asked any prostitutes if they ever wanted to be saved in the first place. There are many feminists out there today, strongly advocating the Nordic prostitution model, like Rachel Moran in Ireland or Renate van der Zee in Holland itself. They often get help from other media, like Opzij, a feminist magazine in Holland for which unsurprisingly Renate van der Zee often writes columns.

Also today Opzij tries to influence the debate about prostitution, with articles that only talks about the bad sides of prostitution, in stead of the (much larger) good sides of it. A good example of that can be found here, where the claim is that one prostitute makes 21.800 dollars for her pimp. A strange thing if you ask me, because prostitutes make much more money then 22.000 dollars a year. If we would only be working for that money, I wouldn't be doing it.
And let's also think about it. If one girl only makes 21.800 dollar, of which everything goes to the pimp, like the article states, than how can these pimps buy all those expensive cars and houses from that? Even if they have 3 or 4 girls working for them, it would take years before they can buy those expensive things, which is in contrast with the story that gets told in the media, that forced prostitutes would make thousands of Euro's a day. Does this mean those forced prostitutes only work about 22 days a year?
If I would be making 22.000 dollars a year, I couldn't even pay for all the things in my life, like my apartment, my workplace, my food and clothes etc. If that's how much money a pimp makes, I wonder how he can pay for all the things in his life, and still has money left to buy that nice car home?

But of course feminists are not the only ones who support this model. Also Christian groups, who've always been against prostitution since the dawn of time, are supporting this model. A good example of that is the ChristenUnie, a Dutch political party, who launched today 10 points that fight human trafficking, in which they admit being against prostitution, and yet seem to promote the Nordic prostitution model, under the pretense of fighting human trafficking. It's a joined force between feminists and Christians that are trying to criminalize clients, and with that indirectly prostitution. Not in hopes of saving women from being forced, but rather from ending prostitution itself.

Of course it's naive to think you can stop prostitution, like I said in the beginning of this blog, it's the oldest job in the world. What's weird though, is the fact that even though it's the oldest job, it's last job in the world to get good and safe working conditions and to be recognized by countries as a legal job.
The feminists and Christian groups supporting this Nordic model, in fact anyone supporting the Nordic model, can be seen as a someone who promotes human trafficking, by pushing prostitutes into the underground, where criminals can easily take control because of the absence of police.
Christians and feminists will often try to scare people into voting for their Nordic prostitution model, using high numbers of forced prostitution, human trafficking and other false messages. They manipulate the debate around prostitution, stigmatizing prostitutes as victims, and as naive, dumb women who didn't choose for this job, but got forced into it, with only one reason, to slowly kill prostitution.
They don't really care about the safety of women working in prostitution, all they care about is destroying it, even if that means women will become victims of forced prostitution, if it helps their case. They are advocates of human trafficking, disguising themselves as the saviors of prostitutes, while with the other hand pushing them off the cliff.

Dutch version